Alane Simons Katzew, Director of Music Programming at the Union for Reform Judaism, has served as a cantor in Illinois and New York for the last two decades.  A native of Oak Park, Michigan, Alane attended the University of Michigan before receiving her degree in Sacred Music from Hebrew Union College –Jewish Institute of Religion in 1981.  She was a cantor of the synagogue and on the faculty of HUC-JIR in Jerusalem, thereby becoming the first invested woman cantor to function in the state of Israel.  Cantor Katzew served as board member, convention chair, secretary and vice-president of the American Conference of Cantors (ACC). After having been a long-time member of the Union for Reform Judaism commissions on Social Action and Religious Living, Alane currently is an ACC representative on the Central Conference of American Rabbis/ACC Life-cycle Manual editorial board.  An editorial consultant to Transcontinental Music Publications and a featured recording artist on the newly released CD – Nigun Anthology and Shabbat Anthology, Volume I, Cantor Katzew is also editor of Divrei Shir a new adult education curriculum that chronicles the development of music in the Reform Synagogue from 1800's through the modern day. She feels blessed to share her life with her spouse, Rabbi Jan David Katzew and their two daughters, Sarit and Cara.